From our Bureau of Socialist Building Maintenance with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Compassion and Social Justice
It’s been raining a lot in Havana lately, so it’s no surprise that multiple collapses have occurred within the space of a few days. The most recent collapse in the neighborhood of El Cerro has killed one person and injured others. The other collapses didn’t cause fatalities, fortunately, but there were serious injuries. Those who survived, however, now find themselves homeless.
One of these collapses took place only one block from where I lived as a child. You can watch a video of its collapse HERE. This crisis is worsening and spreading quickly. This is proven by the fact that buildings are now collapsing in “luxurious” neighborhoods such as El Vedado, Playa, and Miramar, where many oligarchs and apparatchiks live.
Loosely translated from Marti Noticias
One person died and two others were injured when a wall collapsed and fell onto the roof of a house early Friday morning in Havana.
The incident occurred in a building located on Calzada del Cerro, between Carvajal and Patria, according to official reports.
The Cerro Municipal Administration Council reported on social media that the injured were taken to the hospital in a Gazelle taxi that was passing by. Meanwhile, neighborhood residents said they helped to rescue the injured from the house.
This brings the total number of reported collapses in the capital to five in the past week. Just the night before, three other people were injured after a balcony collapsed onto the “El Tablazo” bar-restaurant in the El Vedado neighborhood, very close to the Malecón.
The incident was allegedly caused by “the accumulation of marble slabs that the construction crew working on the first level placed without considering the weight calculation that the structure could support, leading to the structural failure,” authorities commented without providing further details on the incident.
Hours earlier, a two-story house had collapsed on 26th Street between 27th and 29th in the Playa municipality. Videos circulating on social media show a crack on the side of the building’s facade that expanded until the structure collapsed.
Martí Noticias spoke with residents of Old Havana about two other collapses that occurred in the past week. One took place on Tuesday in a house on Monte Street, between Ángeles and Águila. The other happened days earlier in a building on San Ignacio Street #214, between Lamparilla and Obrapía.
“The housing crisis in Cuba is systemic,” commented Rafael Fornés, an architect and professor at the University of Miami, to our newsroom earlier this year.
“The problem is not alleviated by massive exoduses, because the city disappears in the same way that its inhabitants leave,” the academic added.
The authorities have not even come close to this year’s plan. In the first five months of 2024, Cuba has managed to construct only 0.8% of the buildings needed to address the housing deficit in the country, according to data provided by Dilaila Díaz Fernández, General Director of Housing.
Castro, Inc. has been a noxious plague. No people in their right mind would ever have chosen such destruction and dysfunction, which is why the “revolution” was a massive bait-and-switch.
But of course, the regime is praised for “saving Havana,” for restoring the colonial city and setting an example of urban renewal while respecting the architectural patrimony. All that the regime does is build new [ugly] hotels and every once in a while, restore a colonial building that it intends to turn into yet another hotel or some tourist trap. For every building it restores, 20 collapse. At this rate, what’s left of Havana? A few restored plazas surrounded by and connected by streets full of crumbling buildings, pothole and open sewers? How is that attractive to tourists?